March Madness: Creating a Wine Bracket

March is here and March madness along with it! You can have your own March madness but instead of a basketball and hoops, you can have wine madness. There is only so much basketball one can watch during March madness and thus to spice up your day, consider wine madness. There are many ways to use wine comparisons to create a wine bracket. If you have never played wine madness, here are a few things to consider:

1. First, ideally you need to have 64 wines, but it doesn't need to be that many. You can just play the "Sweet Sixteen" or "Elite Eight". Each person involved fills out a bracket. 
2. The simplest way to play wine madness is to pit red wines against white wines.
3. Ask players to bring bottles of white wine (all different) and different red wines. Decide which wines will compete in the first round, second round, and third round. This is called "seeding". So, the ones you think will be the best, start with the highest rank, with 1 being the highest. 
4. Next, pick a theme for March madness / wine madness. This can be anything you like. For example, you can have a wine tasting competition or a history quiz.
5. Ask each person who has brought the bottle of wine to remove the label, but to preserve it.
6. Ask each person to prepare a list of at least 20 questions about their wine and keep the answers a secret.
7. In round one, pit red wine versus red wine, white wine versus white wine. For extra fun, add a wine tasting. Can each player tell what type of wine each is? Sweet, medium, or dry? Where is this wine produced?
8. The possibilities for creating wine brackets are endless. There are so many different kinds of wines out there, but the most important thing is to have fun. At the end of the day, it improves your knowledge of wine, and will get you to find new types/bottles you might fall in love with.
9. Our wine madness bracket is not the only way to play wine madness. You can play it any way you want; the key is to have at least four bottles of reds and four bottles of white wines. 
10. If you plan to do a wine tasting quiz, it is important to use small portions of the wine or small glasses because you do not want to get too intoxicated before you finish the game!
11. To make wine madness delightful, have some appetizers or snacks for everyone.
12. The winner gets to take home a bottle of bubbly, or, a bottle of the winning wine. 

Some wines that you may want to consider for your March madness/wine madness competition include the following:

Red wines

2020 RAINSTORM PINOT NOIR

2016 THICK SKINNED RED MOUNTAIN 

2018 SILVER TOTEM CABERNET SAUVIGNON

2015 THICK SKINNED RED MOUNTAIN

White wines

2020 SWEET RIESLING

2018 VIN DE GLACIÈRE RIESLING

2012 SELENIUM VINEYARD NOBLE WINE

2018 RAINSTORM PINOT GRIS

To get more ideas about how to make wine comparisons, call Pacific Rim & Company at 1-503-863-5454.  The wine connoisseurs who work here are passionate about wine, especially Riesling wine.  They are very knowledgeable and are sure to be able to answer any questions you might have.  Enjoy March madness to the fullest!